Many, many moons ago, Thomas and I were in a dark place. Personal issues aside, we both wanted to continue playing music. Where? What kind of music? Was there room for us?
It wasn’t an option for either of us. We had to keep playing music. We both had a love for old rock n roll and rockabilly and no one else was doing that style of music where we lived so we said, hey, why not? Let’s come up with a name!
We had no lineup yet, but the name, that was the important part! We mulled over stage names, both trying to get rid of our old identities. Mine was pretty easy as my mother’s maiden name means silk in English so it fit perfect with my nickname, Mimi. It had a pseudo burlesque ring to it. Easy peasy. Tom, on the other hand, was a bit different. He was the frontman. He needed a name with panache: think Tommy James, Lemmy, Bill Haley, Frankie Valli. These were named that were easy to say and memorable.
After going through ideas, he finally relinquished control and agreed to be Tommy. Next was his last name.We’d considered October since we both had a predilection for all things spooky, but Tommy thought it was too close to Mr. October and he didn’t want anyone confusing him for Reggie Jackson. Insert canned laughter here.
We tried other months. August just had a nice ring to it and my birthday happens to be in August, so why not? What next? The band name. Little did we know what an adventure it would be naming a soon-to-be rockabilly band.
Stay tuned for part two about the band name, and part three about the discovery we made about all of it together.
See you next time!
